An increasing number of vehicles are traveling over progressively more congested transportation networks. In an effort to relieve such congestion, managed lanes, high occupancy vehicle (HOV) and high occupancy tolling (HOT) lanes are utilized where two or more occupants must be present in the vehicle. Although managed lanes decrease traffic and congestion, abuse of such lanes by vehicle operators is a continuing problem. Identification of vehicle occupancy is an important component of managed lane management and operation. Enforcement of multiple occupants in a vehicle traveling in a managed lane, typically requires law enforcement personnel to visually confirm two or more occupants in a vehicle. This monitoring is tedious and unreliable, costly and time consuming. Therefore, a need exists for an electronic monitoring system to verify vehicle occupancy to improve the use and benefit of managed lanes.